As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is through first-hand experience. However, preparing an entire EA, EIS, or EIR is substantially beyond the limits of this class. Thus first-hand experience is out, but I believe second-hand experience will be a good substitute.

Your assignment is to locate an individual who prepares Environmental Assessments, Environmental Impact Statements, or Environmental Impact Reports on a regular basis and engage that person in a 15 – 20 minute interview. You are welcome to talk to a coworker, if you have one that works in this field. However, most of you will likely need to rely upon a phone interview with a person willing to give some time. As I mentioned in the lectures, something like 50,000 EA’s are drafted each year and 500 EIS’s, so it should not be terribly difficult to locate someone that works in the field.

As part of the interview you should identify yourself as a student and make it clear that you are asking these questions for your education. As part of information security, agency employees are sometimes told not to respond to surveys and cold calls. If you encounter that kind of situation, please understand and try calling someone else.

In the interview I want FOUR pieces of information.

Name, title, and employer.

How long they have been working in field.

A brief summary of the interview.

Three pieces of advice about the right way to prepare an environmental impact analysis and the wrong way to do it. This section is the meat of the assignment and I hope that the class will be able to put together a large list of tips that you can take with you. Feel free to ask about particular learning experiences that the interviewee may have gone through.

You may want to review the lectures on EIS before you start making phone calls. This will allow you to ask better questions and hopefully make a good impression on your interviewee.

Use Time New Roman or Calibri font at 12pt. Use 1-inch margins on all sides.